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Cake day: July 30th, 2025

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  • The break even point for us is estimated at about 30 years, so you have a point, but if you can point out any business that looks at returns over that time frame, they don’t operate in utilities.

    And on your other point, not being exposed to wind and rain doesn’t mean underground cables aren’t susceptible to damage, rats love chewing cables, builders love ignoring prints etc and the time and costs involved in putting things back in the ground are, like I said, dramatically higher.


  • Money.

    I work in different utility but the principal is the same. It costs roughly 10x as much to bury cables in the ground than it does to put them in the air on poles.

    It tends to make sense in dense urban environments or where there’s other factors but for almost all rural and suburban settings the costs to dig in underground cables, ducting, access structures and the associated safety concerns, plus the increased costs to access and repair, far outweigh the possible costs of running cables overhead, even though they’re more susceptible to damage.

    edit:sp